CloudStrife wrote:Next time, make sure you use a penetrating solution and let it soak overnight on ALL bolts you plan on messing with.

Also, from my experience, water pump, crank, any lower engine or "hard to reach" bolts will give you trouble.

If it's an iron block, you could just warm it up before you mess with it too.

Why not tap it? I've done it before with the same situation (for a DA integra knuckle arm bolt). I just went to harbor freight, got a tap and die set, used it, broke it, and returned it .

Welding a nut on there sounds terrible lol.

And you should never, ever be cranking so hard that you snap the bolt. Everytime I snapped one, I knew I should have backed off. All you need to do is break loose that first rusted thread. Sometimes tapping it with a hammer is all you need.

Theres still a decent amount of the bolt sticking out of the head so I'm going to try and use that to my advantage.

And dude, the crappy part is I wasn't even cranking that hard! No breaker bars, no impacts, etc. I was slowly working its way loose like the top one and then, snap Lol. If the easy out, and blow torch can't break it loose, then it was bound to snap anyways. It's just old and rusty.

That sucks dude. One of the downsides (or positives..) of buying RHD, is that they don't replace **** like we do. So it's probably 30+ year old factory bolts, left the factory @torque spec, and poor jake just got shafted .

I would still tap it. I can't imagine welding a nut to a broken stud in a tight space. But if hes coming over anyway...

honestly your best bet is drilling it out if its that fragile, it should just break apart.

CloudStrife wrote:How did things work out man? This weather and the holidays makes things so boring!

The dude came Wednesday evening and it worked like a charm!

I then spent Thursday morning/afternoon putting her back together, burped the coolant system, etc. No lie, I was super nervous after it was all said and done since this was honestly the first time ever doing a job like this 100% independently, but its all good!

Jayrdee wrote:Laundry list:1) trouble shoot and repair digital dash. It works only like, 30% of the time. The speed works, but I have no rpms, water temp, or fuel. Those come and go as they please. When everything is on it functions correctly so I think I have a bad ground or some corrosion somewhere. I'm putting the dash #1 priority because my water pump has a bad gasket. It seeps a little coolant but the car doesn't overheat. So ... the temp gauge is pretty important for me right now

2) "100k service". Replace the waterpump, drive belts, timing belt, and spark plugs. The timing cover says the timing belt was changed at 50k miles roughly 15 years ago, it has plenty of life left but looks old. This is perfect timing though since I have the bad gasket as mentioned before. and I'm right at like, 90,000 miles so its getting close enough. I'd like to check the valve clearances too. It has a slight sewing machine tick to it. 2.5) Upgrade the pulleys via T3 or NST. Might as well do it since I'll have to take this stuff off anyways. I figured it will be a convenient way to free up a little bit of power.

3) troubleshoot steering components. The steering return isn't that great, and the steering wheel is off center. I noticed it was like that when I first got the car, and its still off center even after its most recent alignment. It has to be something in the steering column or the gear in the rack. I don't think its anything tie rod related because those are all new, and the alignment is within spec. I fiddled with the height in the front a little bit, but I doubt that will affect the steering return.

4) continue to work on the fenders. I tackled a few corners last night and noticed the rubbing was pretty bad up front when turning. I think they just need to be pulled out more towards the top of the fender. The rears still rub occasionally too if I hit a bump hard enough. This is only rough driving though, its not a problem cruising around town. Im finding this to be challenging because I'm trying to roll/pull the fenders while retaining the stock body lines. I'm not a fan of fenders that look like bacon.

5) troubleshoot A/C system. Everything is there, might as well see if it will work. Having AC is nice here in KY where it gets really hot and humid. Plus I mean, how many AE86s have working AC anyways?!

Looks like #2 and #3 are done! #6 I think has moved up in priority and turned into a clutch job. Mainly because I decided to hold off on the other coolant leak until I can pull the transmission. I'd rather snap the bolts when the car is already in the air.

And just for sh*ts and giggles, some buddies came over to hangout while I worked on the Corolla over New Years, and we (mainly me) ended up drinking too much Lol. So here's some pics of me that I dont remember

Pat yourself on the back, I sold my miata after trying to do WP and TB. I ran into a lot more issues, and the crank has a fun way of seizing, but it's still a decent job.

Your digi-dash is likely just worn on the tracings of the "board". Or I guess it could be connections. Usually, when you have total failure across all systems like that, it means signal or current that is shared is either shorted or missing.

but if you take it out and study it, I'm sure it won't be that hard for an EE student .

Otherwise, finding a JDM service manual and translating it would be a biotch. Maybe there are write-ups here that go over operation..

But yeah I agree on the dash. Everything functions properly, it just comes and goes as it pleases so it must be a ground issue somewhere, maybe corrosion or a loose wire or something. Really that job is just a matter of me not being lazy and taking it all apart.

My entire childhood pretty much revolved around Gran Turismo and GTA. I blame Vice City for my love for everything 80s Lol.

And my car is insured through Hagerty. Its not necessarily full coverage, but liability at an agreed value. In my case, its insured for $17k. Set aside it not being full coverage, the only downside is I have a mileage limit, I can only drive 5k miles per year. I could get full coverage from like, state farm or progressive or something but they could only value the car at book value. Book value on an 84 Corolla?! .. naahhhh haha

Right, right, I gotcha. Trust me, I understand the value of a money pit total loss.. My turbo 99 si with 70k miles and LS build, leather interior, and gobs of other money, got stolen by a chop shop in Hawaii. I bought it for 10k, and still had a loan on it (was 19). USAA gave me 3.5k.

I didn't have a JDM car for like 2 years after that, I was so mad.

So, how does "agreed upon price work"? Is it because you used the auction price? I feel like us LHD USDM guys wouldn't be able to make it work, even with a binder full of receipts..

Ouch ... Yeah, I know the feeling. I remember pretty much destroying my bedroom after my 00 SI got rear ended. I didn't have a loan or anything but I spent all my money I saved while in Basic/AIT on it, aka too much cash for a 19 year old Lol.

The agreed value thing was pretty interesting. I think I filled out an application online first, and initially wanted to insure it for $20k. A few minutes later a representative called me asking about my application and why I picked that number. He was pretty much like:

"Honestly, I've never even heard of the car before so I just googled 1984 Corolla and went to the first for sale link I found. There's a few 90s models worth like 3-4k, the 80s models vary from 13-17k, and the 70s models are in the 20k range." Me: "Yeah my 20k was just a random number I picked. I only paid 13.5k for it. These weren't ever sold in the US, and they don't come up for sale very often. And the ones that do come up for sale are usually pretty beat. This one was purchased from a legitimate dealership plus extra to get it here to the US."Him: "Well, I don't think I can do 20k. The one I'm looking at now looks to be roughly the same condition as yours, but with less miles. What about 17k?"Me: "Will that value affect my yearly rate?"Him: "Yepp, it will be $250 cheaper"Me: "you gotta deal buddy" Lol.

I think I pay $1150 for a full year? Ironically thats less than what I would have to pay if I were to have a regular monthly insurance payment. (my driving record is still awful for me being a dumb@$$ in highschool)

It sounds like it would be obtainable, but would take a lot of work. I'm glad it worked out for you though!

And I was Navy for 6 years. Good times, some bad, but miss those days. Always something to do! Plus I got to go to Asia a bunch.

Hagerty is great for premium insurance. Zero complaints whatsoever. But thats awesome man! I'm only in the Army National Guard so its just part time like the reserves. Been in as a mechanic for 4 years now with about a year and a half left to go.

Also ....

... wish me luck fellas. I have no idea what I'm doing

As mentioned before, the fuel, rpms, and temp gauges come and go as they please, but all function properly, which leads me to believe its a ground issue somewhere. They all must be going to the same place ... as far as where that "place" is? I have no idea. theres only one way to find out ?

CloudStrife wrote:Is there some reason I cannot find Japan service manuals on internet queries?

Thanks for the info/link! That definitely helped out a lot. I doubt you can find Japanese service manuals on this cluster because it was a super rare option. The digital dash was a Zenki Levin GT-Apex option only.

I got curious to see if I could find anything on the circuit board that could cause the problem but didn't really find anything other than some corrosion on the solders. Not really anything I can do about that, so I'm just going to clean up the terminals on the connectors and put it all back together whenever I get time. I'm not comfortable taking the board apart any further.

Although, it was super interesting to see the odometer having the MPH thing on there. As far as I know these clusters are all in Km/h, but I bet there's a switch somewhere that will put it into MPH.

I'm not too worried about the rpms or fuel, but I definitely want the water temp gauge, so I think I'm going to look into getting a separate aftermarket gauge or something. I hate driving around not knowing if the car is over-heating or not.

CloudStrife wrote:By the way, did you find out if there was a common ground between the three readouts?

Thats another reason why I decided to take the cluster apart. Out of that list you posted there's only 4 ground wires; 16, 26, 19, and 3. Everything else works fine so I was hoping I could at least trace which one is connected to the readouts, but that would require taking it apart further. I'm just going to clean up the connectors and stuff and put it back together.

I noticed after replacing the waterpump it was leaking just a little bit where the o-ring meets the head. Nothing anything major, but enough to be annoying. I had a hard time getting the waterpump mounted so I wouldn't be surprised if I messed up that o-ring a bit. Rather than taking it all apart and replacing the o-ring, this morning I took the belts and covers off and put some RTV around the edge. We'll see how long/if it holds up.